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Guinea pig mite cleaning

sqeakpigs

sqeakpigs

Junior Guinea Pig
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Hi, my guineas have got fur mites I have got the treatment ordered but what can I buy to ensure their cage is clean. I have heard F10 is good.
we usually pick them up and sit on our carpet, their hair and hay has been all over it. What can I use to clean my carpet that won't affect their respiratory
 
I’m sorry to hear this.
Do you mean hay mites or mange mites? (I’m assuming hay mites).

Which treatment has your vet given you?

Use F10 to disinfect the cage. Soak any wooden items in a bucket of diluted F10. Throw away hay and any cage accessories (such as cardboard items) which can’t be cleaned.
Carry out cage disinfection two days after each treatment has been used on your piggies (including two days after the final treatment). This ensures that once a treatment is working and the dead mites fall off, that the cage is then free of any mite debris.

I would advise buying the concentrated version of f10 rather than the ready to use bottles

In the case of hay mites, you can also cut their hair short as that will help remove a lot of eggs.
This does not work with mange mites as mange eggs are buried within the skin.

You can probably just vacuum your carpet really well. You might be able to spray your carpet with f10 before vacuuming. It’s not something I’ve ever had to do (my piggies are outside and even if they do come in, I dont have carpets downstairs in the house so I can’t speak from experience).

New Guinea Pig Problems: Sexing & Pregnancy; URI, Ringworm & Parasites; Vet Checks & Customer Rights
 
Thankyou. If I use F10 in their cage as a spray, will a quick wipe down be okay to put them back after 5ish minutes or will they need to stay in carry case for a bit
 
We've been told or order Naqua Pharmaceuticals Ivermectin by the vets so are waiting for new hay, treatment & cleaning things to arrive before we start treatment
 
F10 is safe for them to be around so once the cage is cleaned they can go back in immediately
Any wooden items you may have will benefit from being soaked in a bucket of f10 ideally overnight

Naqua is sometimes being used as a result of the xeno shortage
 
sqeakpigs said:
Thankyou, on our way to mite free pigs!
Click to expand...

All the best.

If you are dealing hay mites, it helps to get on top of them by giving your piggies a short haircut close to the skin in order to remove all the eggs fixed to the hairs before you apply the naqua and put them into the cleaned and disinfected cage.

I know that this is a drastic and unsightly method but it massively cuts down on the number of emerging mites you have to fight chemically and denies your existing mites a good space to fix any new eggs in the underlayers of the body. The hair will always grow back to its genetically determined length. It more than halves your hay mites battle.

Mange mites burrow their eggs in the skin, so hair cutting doesn't work for them.

An Illustrated Guide to Hair Cutting
 
I don't feel comfortable cutting their hair. Though I'm not quite sure when we would change their dustpan & brush. If we don't change it would the brush introduce new mites back into the cage? We need a new dustpan & brush anyway so I'm not too sure.
Also, I've done a bit of research and it says it'll take 3-4 weeks to kill mites already active but it takes a repeated dose every 7-10 days to kill eggs.
For an example, would we be okay to use treatment on the guinea pig and give clean bedding, then the next week give another treatment and more clean bedding but disinfectant everything? Or should we treat them, disinfectant the cage with strong F10 solution and give clean bedding every week for a month and then give treatment monthly to prevent mites?
 
To clarify what you have read about killing mites and eggs:
- Treatment only kills the mites.
- Treatment does not kill eggs at all.
Therefore the first treatment only kills the active mites. All the eggs must continue to hatch before being killed by the second and third treatments (it’s why repeated treatments over several weeks at the correct intervals are needed to ensure the full life cycle is caught at the right time).
It’s also why the advice to cut their hair exists and is highly recommended - cutting the hair off means you remove a huge number of eggs before they have chance to hatch so you will drastically reduce the infestation.

Usually it’s three treatments that are needed to fully catch the mite life cycle, but if any eggs or mites remain at the end of the course, then a further course may be needed upon vet instruction.

Clean the cage, add new bedding. Do a treatment. Wait two days after treatment and then disinfect (f10), clean the cage and put in fresh bedding.
You then go back to normal cage cleaning routine between each treatment.
Then repeat disinfection and replace bedding two days after each subsequent treatment.
You then do a final disinfect and clean at the end of treatment.
If you are using fleece bedding make sure you wash the bedding on a hot cycle .

No don’t do a monthly preventative. You only use a course of treatment when there is a diagnosed case of mites.
If you use treatment regularly as a preventive then you risk resistance meaning if you do then have another outbreak, the treatment becomes much less likely to work.
 
Thankyou so much! I wasn't aware they would get used to the treatment and it not work if they had another outbreak. Thankyou 🙏🙏🙏😊😊
 
Is each treatment a week apart? Sorry for asking so many questions 😅
 
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